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Mike Williams will be eligible for the NFL Draft in 2005.
The NCAA refused to reinstate Southern California All-American Mike Williams on Thursday, leaving the star receiver unable to rejoin the top-ranked Trojans after being shut out of the NFL draft by the courts.
"I'm glad it's over. Now the team can move forward and I can move forward," Williams said. "I'm disappointed. I did everything asked of me. I don't know yet what I'm going to do. I'll just relax for the weekend and watch the game and root for my team."
The ruling came down shortly before the Trojans boarded an airplane for a flight Baltimore. They open their season Saturday night against Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Landover, Md.
USC coach Pete Carroll was angry with the ruling and its timing.
"It's very cold and insensitive for them to deny him this opportunity," he said. "As a football team, we've been prepared for this for a while. I'm not surprised by it, but I'm disappointed for Mike and his family. You'll have to go and ask the NCAA for answers, how they can turn someone down who is academically eligible."
The school had applied to the NCAA for a progress-toward-degree waiver and reinstatement of Williams' eligibility.
USC officials were unsure if there were any appeals still available for Williams but he said he didn't plan to pursue them, anyway.
"I'm kind of done with it right now," he said. He will be eligible for the 2005 draft.
Williams told ESPN The Magazine he was thinking of those who helped him clear NCAA hurdles just for him to make his case.
"I really felt bad for the people that exhausted the whole entire process, like my parents who put together all the numbers and all the receipts," Williams said. "And I feel bad for coach Carroll, who had to save face for me and sticking up for me when I wasn't at practice. He had to deal with my issue as well as get the team prepared for the season.
"I really was worried about all those other people who tried to help me throughout the situation and how they're gonna react to it. I just want to thank a lot of people who were behind the scenes trying to make it happen."
Williams also told ESPN The Magazine that he will work out with USC strength coach Chris Carlisle while attending classes for the next four months. By then, he will be the minimum three years removed from high school. In his quest to have his academic eligibility restored, Williams also took summer classes.
He caught 95 passes for 1,314 yards and a school-record 16 touchdowns last season to help the Trojans (12-1) win a share of the national championship.
The 20-year-old Williams, a sure-handed 6-foot-5, 230-pounder, finished eighth in the Heisman Trophy balloting as a sophomore last year.
After a court ruled that Ohio State's Maurice Clarett was eligible to play in the NFL, Williams left USC in the spring, hired an agent and said he was turning pro. That made him ineligible to play for the Trojans.
He was projected as a high draft pick, but on May 24, an appeals court overturned the earlier ruling and upheld the NFL's right to bar players who had been out of high school for less than three years. The latter ruling effectively barred both Williams and Clarett, who was suspended last season after starring at Ohio State as a freshman, from the draft.
After the appeals court ruling, Williams severed ties with his agent and began the process of applying to the NCAA for reinstatement.
Williams said he playing in the CFL this fall is not an option. What's next then?
"School," he said. "It makes no sense to just sit around for four or five months and do nothing. I'm just going to get with coach Carlisle and get on a workout program that's going to take me through December and just adjust to being a normal student and finish out the semester. And then just give [NFL scouts] hell when I go through my workouts."
Source: ESPN
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